A GOVERNMENT minister has praised the newly combined Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service just five weeks after council leader Jane Scott probed the possibility of “de-coupling” the service.

Fire minister Brandon Lewis visited Marlborough fire station on Friday and said: “I had the pleasure of learning about the important work that has been on-going ... since the merger in April this year.”

It follows the controversial comments made by Baroness Scott in a Lords committee debate on the Policing and Crime Bill, in which she asked about breaking-up DWFRS just six months after it was created.

Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Authority chairman Rebecca Knox said she had been delighted to discuss with the minister the “positive outcomes” of the combination and that DWFRS was “leading the way” in modernising the fire service. Last month Baroness Scott said she had wanted Wiltshire’s fire service to be under the control of the county’s Police Commissioner, Conservative Angus Macpherson, to “maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of our blue-light services”.

At a meeting last week, councillors spent more than 40 minutes debating whether to congratulate the newly combined service “on the successful and professional manner in which the merger has been carried out and the way in which excellent standards of service are provided”.

Opposition councillors led by Ernie Clark and Ricky Rogers, both fire authority members, brought the motion, but council leader Jane Scott said it was “a little bit premature” and proposed congratulating the service on a “smooth and harmonious transformation” instead. She called for some “figures and outcomes” and asked for a report in July 2017 to allow a “full debate” on the service’s performance after its first year in operation.

Her changes were accepted, but former Lib Dem leader John Hubbard called it a “wrecking amendment” and lamented some “disparaging comments” made since the merger.

Labour leader Ricky Rogers said the combination had been “seamless” and called for some stability rather than more “unnerving comments”.

And former chairman of Wiltshire Fire Authority Chris Devine said the “brave men and women” had been doing a “magnificent job” since the “traumatic” merger.